Fox News and Nikki Haley - How the Network Has Had its Thumb on the Scale for Trump
An overview of several examples that show Fox News has been in the tank for Trump since day one.
On the day New Hampshire voters participated in the Republican primary I noticed how hosts on Fox News pivoted dramatically against Nikki Haley. The day after Trump won Iowa she instantly became a foolish woman who might be secretly working for Democrats.
Only one thing was certain - she would definitely lose her home state of South Carolina to Trump and her political career would be over. According to Fox News she was committing political suicide.
The morning of the primary Haley openly complained about how the network had treated her campaign on “Fox & Friends.” The polls in the Granite State were still open as smug overpaid personalities on “The Five,” tore down Trump’s only remaining Republican opponent.
I decided to go back through this entire project from February 2022 to figure out exactly when Fox News started undermining Haley’s campaign.
This included roughly 40 segments along with a 29-minute short biography on Fox Nation simply called “Who is Nikki Haley?”
Haley has an incredibly slim chance of winning the nomination, but she gets under Trump’s skin and distracts him from his ultimate goal of beating Joe Biden. There is a lot of debate on both sides of the political spectrum about the usefulness of her campaign.
Will her voters go to Trump? Will they vote for Joe Biden? Will they just stay home or vote third party?
I am of the belief that the longer she stays in the race the more damage she can do to Trump so I’m all for doubling down on the lost cause that is Nikki Haley 2024.
Haley can influence moderate and swing voters as she points out Trump’s many flaws from the perspective of an old school Republican.
Fox News never gave the former governor of South Carolina a fair shake. The network’s bias towards Donald J. Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis started from day one of her campaign.
The Timeline of Evidence
2/15/23 - Nikki Haley declares she’s running for president.
Her candidacy was briefly mentioned on more than one show without much added commentary.
2/20/23 - “The Ingraham Angle”
Five days after Haley declared her candidacy for president Laura Ingraham invited Harmeet Dhillon, a conservative attorney, to discuss one of Haley’s proposed policies - mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75.
Both Ingraham and Dhillon made the case that competency tests for anyone running for president were unconstitutional.
Dhillon brought up Trump’s age.
“I mean, Donald Trump is 76. I don't think anyone would question whether he is mentally agile enough to be the president. So Dianne Feinstein has been exhibiting signs of mental incompetence since well before her last election. So I do think it's up to voters to assess that and make their own determinations.
And this is not a panacea for old people being in politics. And then we have to find other ways to deal with the power of incumbency, which is really the reason why we have so many octogenarians and septuagenarians in D.C. is really because of that issue, but not because somehow we don't know about their mental issues,” said Dhillon.
Ingraham also dissed the policy.
“I think Nikki Haley, you know, it’s kind of a cool line to throw out there in a political context. But in practice, what would those questions be on the competency test be Harmeet?” Ingraham said as she laughed. “What do you what wouldn't you and I like to write them. Wouldn't that be fun? Only if we could write them, would we say it's not constitutional. I'm joking, obviously.”
3/3/23 - “Who is Nikki Haley?” - Fox Nation
Fox Nation produces cheaply produced documentaries about any number of public and political figures. In early March the streaming service produced, “Who is Nikki Haley?” was a 25-minute exploration about Haley’s upbringing and professional history.
Most of the “Who is?” series of films are glowing puff pieces. The last four minutes of “Who is Nikki Haley?” included about two minutes of criticism of Haley that was all related to her relationship with Donald J. Trump.
For comparison I viewed Fox Nation’s, “Who is Ron DeSantis?” to see if the folks at Fox were equally critical of Florida governor. There was absolutely nothing critical about DeSantis in the entire episode. More than one Fox personality referred to DeSantis as “Central Casting for President of the United States.”
Trace Gallagher a Fox News host made the first critical comment about the former governor of South Carolina.
“There are a number of things that could prevent her from becoming the GOP nominee. Maybe first and foremost among them is animosity that still lingers among ardent Trump supporters to what she said following January 6th,” said Gallagher.
The producers then cut to an old media clip from CNN.
“Nikki Haley is now coming out criticizing her former boss, telling Politico in an extensive new piece, we need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down the path he shouldn't have, and we should have followed him and we shouldn't have listened to him. And we cannot let that happen again,” said CNN. The Voiceover was uncredited.
Gallagher continued.
“Now, since then, she's, I think, to a large degree, moderated those comments. She has suggested that the Republican Party needs to have Donald Trump in it, though not necessarily as its leader or president. But I have heard from a lot of people on the Republican side who are very, very ardent Donald Trump supporters that they would never support Nikki Haley for the GOP nominee.”
The producers then cut to Republican strategist Karl Rove who had said glowing things about Haley up until this point.
“She saw what happened on January 6th and condemned it. But she also understands that our party is a coalition and a significant part of our coalition, are people who are attracted to voting for in 2016 and 2020 Donald Trump. And so she doesn't want him to leave our party.”
The filmmakers cut back to image of Haley on the screen as Ainsley Earhardt, the narrator of the piece also pointed out some of Haley’s shortcomings.
“And that isn't her only flip flop on Trump. In 2021 Haley said in a press conference that she would support her former boss if he were running in 2024.”
The producers cut to a short media clip of Haley from April 12, 2021.
“I would not run if President Trump ran, and if I did I would talk to him about it.”
Earhardt continued as a silent clip of Haley at a campaign event was featured on the screen.
“Haley later walked back on those comments announcing her own presidential run, but not without Trump's blessings.”
It was a bit unfair for anyone to say Haley had flip-flopped on this issue as she said in her original statement that if she decided to run for president, she would talk to Trump about it first, which she did.
The next clip in the film was of Trump sitting in his plane confirming that Haley had talked to him before declaring her candidacy.
12/6/23 - The 4th GOP Presidential Debate on News Nation
Both Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy made direct attacks on Haley during the debate. Ramaswamy called her campaign launch video, “a woke Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light ad.”
DeSantis accused her of opposing bans on transgender surgery and of sending a “love letter” to the Chinese ambassador when she was governor of South Carolina in an attempt to drive Chinese investment to her state.
Ramaswamy referred to Haley as the “only person more fascist than the Biden regime” and said his 3-year-old could show her the difference between the U.S. and Israel on a map.
At the time of the debate Haley was surging in the polls and becoming more of a threat to DeSantis. Ramaswamy was still polling in the single digits.
12/7/23 - “The Ingraham Angle”
Laura Ingraham opened her show with a nearly 8-minute monologue titled ‘Tricky for Nikki’ dedicated to tearing down Haley’s performance in the previous night’s debate.
“Last night's News Nation debate was a smackdown with both Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, both populist conservatives taking on Haley and challenging her real views and record on issues like protecting girls, private space and locker rooms and bathrooms. . . That was an interesting move because, after all, hell is the only woman on the stage, a fact that she has decided to lean into. Even though I thought Republicans value objective merit, not racial or gender based, bean counting, why is any Republican offering up her gender as a substantive reason to vote for her? Now, could this be an effort to wash away her more mainstream Romney Republicanism? This election is going to be decided by a wonderful, multiethnic, working-class coalition of voters who are tired of the political doublespeak and just want their country back,” said Ingraham.
Ingraham took a few comments Haley made about her gender and morphed them into some kind of identity politics crusade. She then implied that Haley was being used as a political pawn by powerful Democrats.
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